Folger Tech 2020 i3 Printer Kit (Official Thread)

On the auto leveling... I for one, am lazy. And clumsy. And I like to mess with stuff. One less thing I don't have to do, the better. I'm good with leveling as well. I leveled by hand then probed for giggles.. was within 0.05mm on all corners.

QuoteMach
Hey tjnamtiw, have you tried the full graphics controller? If you did, could you get it to work properly?

No, I haven't tried it ............yet. All of these 'goodies' are very tempting but I ask myself "Self, do you really need that right now when you're having enough fun making STUFF and designing new STUFF? AND it's all working, so don't screw with it!"

I haven't really even looked at the advantages of the new display vs the one I have, to be honest. To be equally honest, at this point, I can see why everyone is making such a big deal out of this self-leveling BS when I've run about 100 hours and my bed still has a .1 mm gap in all four corners. (checked it yesterday). That goes for the threaded rod vs lead screws for the Z axis. I know the advantages of lead screws but for the Z axis that gets used so very little, it makes little sense. There's no backlash because you have the entire X axis assembly hanging on it taking up the backlash. I can see real advantages for the X and Y axes, but not the Z. If any emphasis should be brought to bear, it should be on eliminating these horrible 8 mm linear bearings and the alignment issues of the twin rods, which causes most of the problems IMHO. Most people don't have a clue that they are the weak link in the whole reprap design.

Quotesrcga
On the auto leveling... I for one, am lazy. And clumsy. And I like to mess with stuff. One less thing I don't have to do, the better. I'm good with leveling as well. I leveled by hand then probed for giggles.. was within 0.05mm on all corners.

The standard is for you to be able to slide a piece of printing paper under the nozzle, with a slight amount of grab onto the paper from the nozzle. This will get you to about 100 microns(0.1mm) from the bed.

The standard is for you to be able to slide a piece of printing paper under the nozzle, with a slight amount of grab onto the paper from the nozzle. This will get you to about 100 microns(0.1mm) from the bed.

If you have feeler gauges, that's about 0.004". That gives you a good squeeze out as you move slowly on the first pass.

Quotesrcga
On the auto leveling... I for one, am lazy. And clumsy. And I like to mess with stuff. One less thing I don't have to do, the better. I'm good with leveling as well. I leveled by hand then probed for giggles.. was within 0.05mm on all corners.

1/2 a tenth is pretty darn good for those sensors! Wow.

I know, close enough for me.

Quotetjnamtiw

QuoteMach

Quotemsaeger
How far should the nozzle actually be from the bed?

The standard is for you to be able to slide a piece of printing paper under the nozzle, with a slight amount of grab onto the paper from the nozzle. This will get you to about 100 microns(0.1mm) from the bed.

If you have feeler gauges, that's about 0.004". That gives you a good squeeze out as you move slowly on the first pass.

Yep was going to say -- feeler gauges. My smallest one is .005" which I think is .13mm, and that got me close.

The one thing that is a nice side effect with the auto level is that I can adjust that offset (in turn, dial in the first layer via firmware) --- without it you would need to print yourself one of those Z end stop adjusters w/ thumb screw to get the precise adjustment, or turn off the safeties that allow travel past the Z end stop to get dialed in... or even home Z when the nozzle is away from the bed then have a firmware offset raise it high enough. That is really where I can see newcomers getting frustrated, getting that Z end stop right. It definitely does take time.

Printed 1 layer of material with .3mm height and that is exactly what it read on my calipers. I know there is a margin of error -- perfectly happy with being within hundreths of a mm, personally.

Starting to get some bearing noise on the X and Y carriages. Going to see if lubing up helps, or some upgrades

So, for ABL, if, for example the left side is detected as being .4 mm lower than the right side, as the print head moves to the left you should see the Z axis move downward every time it goes to the left. Correct?

Just finished a minor rebuild of the Y subsystem: replaced the bearings and lubricated them, which I didn't do the first time round, and replaced the belt block with one that has an adjustable tensioner:

I also added washers to the adjustment screws for the heated bed, so now they go (from top to bottom): bolt, washer, heater, washer, spring, washer, aluminium base, washer, adjustment nut, like this:

This makes tweaking them a lot easier. In honour of Tom Salanderer's term "kapton burrito", I'm thinking of calling it the "hot bed spring roll",

Quoteanimoose
Just finished a minor rebuild of the Y subsystem: replaced the bearings and lubricated them, which I didn't do the first time round, and replaced the belt block with one that has an adjustable tensioner:

I also added washers to the adjustment screws for the heated bed, so now they go (from top to bottom): bolt, washer, heater, washer, spring, washer, aluminium base, washer, adjustment nut, like this:

This makes tweaking them a lot easier. In honour of Tom Salanderer's term "kapton burrito", I'm thinking of calling it the "hot bed spring roll",

Good idea on the washers. I assume lock washers so the darn bolt doesn't turn when you turn the thumb nut. Opened your photos (wouldn't display here) and I see they are flat washers. When it's time for me, I'm using star washers.

Quoteanimoose
Just finished a minor rebuild of the Y subsystem: replaced the bearings and lubricated them, which I didn't do the first time round, and replaced the belt block with one that has an adjustable tensioner:

I also added washers to the adjustment screws for the heated bed, so now they go (from top to bottom): bolt, washer, heater, washer, spring, washer, aluminium base, washer, adjustment nut, like this:

This makes tweaking them a lot easier. In honour of Tom Salanderer's term "kapton burrito", I'm thinking of calling it the "hot bed spring roll",

Got a link to the STL for that y-tensioner? I've had a hell of a time finding a decent one on thingiverse (I'm clearly not searching using the right words)

I think this is where the tensioner came from: [www.thingiverse.com]. I printed it ages ago, so I am not certain. One thing to note is that you have to pick the length of the on the movable side carefully or else it gets in the way. I used a M3x12 with three washers to get it exactly right. Probably M3x10 would work, I just didn't have any to hand.

Quoteanimoose
I think this is where the tensioner came from: [www.thingiverse.com]. I printed it ages ago, so I am not certain. One thing to note is that you have to pick the length of the on the movable side carefully or else it gets in the way. I used a M3x12 with three washers to get it exactly right. Probably M3x10 would work, I just didn't have any to hand.

Whoever designed that and submitted the pictures did not have their extrusion flow set properly

Quoteanimoose
I think this is where the tensioner came from: [www.thingiverse.com]. I printed it ages ago, so I am not certain. One thing to note is that you have to pick the length of the on the movable side carefully or else it gets in the way. I used a M3x12 with three washers to get it exactly right. Probably M3x10 would work, I just didn't have any to hand.

Whoever designed that and submitted the pictures did not have their extrusion flow set properly

I just got through installing this tensioner on my ft2020 this morning along with using 4 bearings on the y axis in place of 3. I used 3x10 button head screws and a non locking nut under the adjustment end. Added a little blue locktight on it.

Stepper motor settings: Lots of discussion about this, BUT: I was surprised to find the stepper motors supplied by FTech are 12 volt motors. Since the power supply is 12 volts as well, no current limiting should be needed. Thus the current pots should be able to be at maximum as the motors will not draw more than they are rated for. So they shouldn't overheat. I see most motors are rated for a case temp of 100C which is darned hot. Usually steppers are speced at 2-6 times less than the supply voltage for faster acceleration and current limiting is then needed.

Getting close to the point of printing my first part. I have finally made it through the configuration guide and all the manual controls seem to be working properly. I can manually extrude filament with the Repetier-Host controls. I started my first print (a simple 10mm cube) and there was no extrusion during the print. The extruder ran the print route but extruded no filament. Any ideas on what the cause of this could be? I have tried the simple things like powering down the printer and restarting Repetier-Host. I even swapped out the extruder head.

This is a long shot but the simplest things ALWAYS get me. What is your extruder temperature default set for in Repetier/Printer settings and in Repetier/slicer? Maybe when you are printing, the extruder isn't hot.?

I hope you calibrated your extruder before trying to print the test cube.

Quotejaclack
Getting close to the point of printing my first part. I have finally made it through the configuration guide and all the manual controls seem to be working properly. I can manually extrude filament with the Repetier-Host controls. I started my first print (a simple 10mm cube) and there was no extrusion during the print. The extruder ran the print route but extruded no filament. Any ideas on what the cause of this could be? I have tried the simple things like powering down the printer and restarting Repetier-Host. I even swapped out the extruder head.

Did some searching back through the forum and found others that had an issue with the extruder stepper cable being backwards. I swapped the connection to the Ramps board and it is printing now. Thanks tjnamtiw for your response with the idea you suggested.